preschool plans: the next round of ABCs

My plans for the next round of ABCs have gone up and down and around.

I love sharing what we do at home.  But as this last alphabet drew to a close, I found that my son was not enjoying it anymore.  This is partly my fault.  I became less creative — and we’ve spent two+ weeks on each letter.  Way. too. slow.  I also found that documenting our tot school days became a bit tedious here on the blog.  It just became a thing to do, rather than a thing to love.

I want to love doing Preschool with my 3 1/2 year old boy, and beginning Tot School with my 20 month old girl, so my Letter posts aren’t going to be as in-depth as they have been in the past — instead they will be a quick snapshot.  This is what I’ve decided for now….

A Tot School overview:

For my son, we started Tot School at about 2 1/2 years of age.  He wasn’t ready for anything before this.  He does not love to color or pick up a crayon or pencil, so getting him to sit down was always a hard first step.  But once we got him going, he did enjoy most of the work.  You can check out my post on Connecting with my son for more on adjusting my plans to fit his learning passions and needs.

I created a Tot School Planning Form to guide our time — and I used it up until half way through the alphabet.  But once I “knew” him and myself, I kind of scrapped it.  I wanted to make sure we did most of the worksheets (with do-a-dots, stamps, markers, dry erase, etc.), did a sensory activity, a math activity, and a craft each week.  If all of this was done, I was happy and satisfied with the way things went.

Our Preschool Plans:

So, here goes.  This is our schedule and curriculum for Preschool.  I am deciding to call this once a week time “Preschool.”  And our next go-around will focus on capital letter writing, which will be called “Pre-Kindergarten.”

We will be focusing on uppercase letter recognition, tactile uppercase letter writing, and beginning lowercase letter recognition (and matching uppercase and lowercase letters).  It is important, above all, to know your learner and to adapt according to their needs.  As a former Kindergarten teacher, I am not worried that my son hasn’t mastered all the skills he needs to have before reading because he is only three and he will always, always learn, and love to learn, only it will be at his pace.

Please see my Early Literacy Stages series for an explanation of each of the six literacy stages and how to teach them to your child.

Our Daily Schedule:

1.   Music, Movement, Dance Time

2.   Bible Time

3.   Recitation Time

• Letter & book of the week
• Bible Verse of the week
• Poem of the week & poem review
• Number of the week work
• Color of the week work
• Counting 1-30, by 5s, by 10s (and up)

4.   Letter Time:

• Working on alphabet letter recognition and sounds with various activities, games, and objects
• Pages from our two below curriculums, most likely in a “station” style

5.   Craft, Sensory, Practical Life Time

{This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclosure policy.} 

Our chosen materials & activities:

• Zoomin’ Movin’ Alphabet curriculum from Royal Baloo

• Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler

• The Preschool Journey by Teaching Mama.  There are many wonderful ideas for crafts and activities for each letter in this eBook.  We will pick and choose different activities according to my son’s interests.

• My First Hands-On Bible: Reading through the Bible with our Preschool Bible Notebook.  I adore this Bible and could not recommend it more highly.  I devoted a whole post to “why” here.

• Big Thoughts for Little People by Kenneth Taylor: A Christian character building book from A to Z.

• Sing the Word from A to Z cd

• Sing the Word from A to Z Bible Verse free printables

• Preschool Alphabet Book: continue making a page each week for our ABC Book!

• ABC Felt Animals: we will continue to make our felt animals for every letter of the alphabet!

• Poems taken from: 24 Preschool Chants & 12 Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson

• Make letters using manipulatives along with Lego Alphabet Uppercase Cards, Lowercase Cards, and Alphabet Pattern Block Sheets

• Build-A-Letter Templates for Uppercase Letters

• Montessori Alphabet Sound Box (at least once a week)

• Montessori sandpaper alphabet cards

• Clothespin alphabet match cards from 1plus1plus1equals1

• Letters of all sizes handwriting sheets from The Measured Mom

Looking forward:

My daughter will be jumping in and doing activities with us.  I didn’t want to do anything “official” with her until she is 2 years old, but I think she may end up doing 1plus1plus1equals1’s Tot School Printables (the same ones we used for John for Tot School).  But this will be very loosely based.  She will probably go through Tot School (2s) again, more intentionally, at the same time that my son will be in my Pre-Kindergarten (4s) plan, but that may change when we get there.

Most important of all

We will be reading constantly.  We read picture books and baby books.  I have also begun read-alouds (i.e. less pictures) with him (more on this later), which he loves!!

Check out my recent post on 10 reasons we should read to our children.